Neuropsychopharmacology SHP099 cost (2010) 35, 2600-2606; doi:10.1038/npp.2010.154; published online 22 September 2010″
“Here, we examined the effect of a daytime nap on changes in virtual maze performance across a single day. Participants

either took a short nap or remained awake following training on a virtual maze task. Post-training sleep provided a clear performance benefit at later retest, but only for those participants with prior experience navigating in a three-dimensional (3D) environment. Performance improvements in experienced players were correlated with delta-rich stage 2 sleep. Complementing observations that learning-related brain activity is reiterated during post-navigation NREM sleep in rodents, the present data demonstrate that NREM sleep confers a performance advantage for spatial memory in humans.”
“Oxytocin reportedly decreases anxious feelings in humans and may therefore have therapeutic value for anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As PTSD patients have exaggerated startle responses, a fear-potentiated startle paradigm in rats may have face validity as an animal model to examine the efficacy of oxytocin in treating these symptoms. MK-1775 price Oxytocin (0, 0.01, 0.1, or 1.0 mu g, subcutaneously) was given either 30 min before fear conditioning, immediately after fear conditioning,

or 30 min before fear-potentiated startle testing to assess its effects on acquisition, consolidation, and expression of conditioned fear, respectively.

Startle both in the presence and absence of the fear-conditioned light was significantly diminished by oxytocin when administered at acquisition, consolidation, or expression. There was no specific effect of oxytocin on light fear-potentiated startle. In an additional experiment, oxytocin had no effects on acoustic startle without previous fear conditioning. Further, in a context-conditioned https://www.selleck.cn/products/ly-411575.html test, previous light-shock fear conditioning did not increase acoustic startle during testing when the fear-conditioned light was not presented. The data suggest that oxytocin did not diminish cue-specific conditioned nor contextually conditioned fear, but reduced background anxiety. This suggests that oxytocin has unique effects of decreasing background anxiety without affecting learning and memory of a specific traumatic event. Oxytocin may have antianxiety properties that are particularly germane to the hypervigilance and exaggerated startle typically seen in PTSD patients. Neuropsychopharmacology (2010) 35, 2607-2616; doi:10.1038/npp.2010.155; published online 15 September 2010″
“We studied the role of nucleus accumbens shell (AcbSh) in Pavlovian fear conditioning. Rats were trained to fear conditioned stimulus A (CSA) in Stage I, which was then presented in compound with a neutral stimulus and paired with shock in Stage II.